Not giving a fuck doesn't mean you don't care.

It means you are comfortable with who you are and will not be influenced by opinions of you. This is not to say that you would not take other peoples’ opinions into advisement, but it is unlikely to change who you inherently are.

It is hard to find and be comfortable with yourself. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with who I was until my early 30s. I specifically remember my 30th birthday sitting at my desk writing some reports. I spaced out for a second realising I was now officially in my 30s and definitely wasn’t content despite having a successful career and enough money to do whatever I wanted. My boss asked me what was wrong and I told him I turned 30 that day, then I excused myself and went home.

The realisation that I wasn’t happy with who I was or where I was at in my life really spurred me to seriously consider what steps I needed to take. The first was working out who I really was, which honestly is a challenge of its own. Once you work out who you are, then you can start considering what you want to do with your life. It is completely insane that we let teenagers decide what they want to do with their lives when fully mature adults have no idea!

When I worked out who I was, I realised that there were improvements that could be made to align who I was with who I wanted to be. This required destruction of toxic relationships, quitting an unfulfilling job and finding a purpose that mattered to me. In my case, it was teaching and helping people get through the journey that I experienced.

Sometimes we get lost in the noise of expectations and misunderstanding of what is really important in life. This stains our view of who we are and who we want to be. It is white noise that fucks with our sense of self and drops a false identity on our heads.

At the end of my personal journey, I had a firm grasp on who I was and I was able to make some changes to improve how content I was with that person in the mirror. I know I still have room for improvement and luckily have a partner that keeps me very honest with myself.

Having that strong sense of self-identity, I can truly say that I do not give a fuck about how other people view me. The most important person to please is that person you see in the mirror each morning, as you have to live with that mother-fucker. The buck well and truly stops with you. If you are able to care less about how other people view you (if you are happy with yourself first!) then you’re able to work out the true happiness and contentment in your life. No longer measuring your dick size with the dude sitting next to you or wishing you had their life.

This isn’t to say you should limit your ambition by not giving a fuck. On the contrary, you should have the ambition to work on and understand yourself, or you will never be able to stop giving a fuck. There is a huge difference between the two, so don’t get it twisted. In summary: find and understand yourself + make improvements to align wants with who you are = being able to let go of all the fucks.